From the staff of St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church

When We Knew We Were Loved

It’s been a month now and I am doing well, although I am continually amazed and grateful at the skill of medical science who put a piece of metal in my leg!

I have had to be more quiet – less running around, having lunches out, shopping, or messing around in the garden. Perhaps it’s because it’s fall, a paradoxical time of new beginnings and also losses as well as the shadow of ice and cold looming. I have been nostalgic for….. I’m not sure what. The Epistle from James for next Sunday suggest that unease comes from “your cravings that are at war within you.”

Maybe so.

The Gospel says that the Disciples“were afraid to ask” Jesus questions when they didn’tunderstand what he was trying to teach them — which was the essence of Christianfaith. This “essence” reflects the rhythms of human life which include suffering and loss followed by rebirth or transformation.

Sometimes we become nostalgic forwhat preceded oursuffering – a time when we remember life as being easier, more rewarding, even more loving…. before the diagnosis, before the kids left home, or when our parents were still alive.

I hope I’m not the only fan of the iconic television series Mad Men, about a New York advertisingagency in the Sixties. Inthis video, ad man Donald Draper is pitching an advertising campaign to two executives from Kodak who want to market their newslideprojector as a wheel. Don has some things to say about that. (Ignore the annoying ad at the beginning, if one plays on your computer).